


After Allegiant

by pseudonymous_writer_blogger



Category: Divergent Series - Veronica Roth
Genre: Angst, Drama, F/M, Forgiveness, Love, Multi, Redemption, Romance, fourtris - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-18
Updated: 2016-03-18
Packaged: 2018-05-27 10:34:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 11,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6281242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pseudonymous_writer_blogger/pseuds/pseudonymous_writer_blogger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Tris's death, Tobias must cope with his grief. Along with his remaining friends, he tries to stay afloat within the drowning feelings he has without Tris. He learns that he can find a way without her and live for her memory.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. one

There is a pool of light a few feet in front of me.  Out of it comes a hand, bloody and bent like a claw.  Slowly, a blond head crawls out, then a neck.  She pulls her body across, bloody, bent, and beaten.  The woman’s skin is more purple and black than her natural tone.  I know who it is.  Tris. 

I have trouble breathing, inhaling but not exhaling enough, because the sight of her makes me stop and shudder.  I know that if I don’t reach her in time, she will be gone.  But when I try to run, I am frozen in my spot.

Her eyes, searching the darkness surrounding us, land on mine, piercing me with the brightness, just like it always has.  Always had.

“Help,” she gasps, and I am frantic as I watch blood pour from her mouth, scratching at whatever holds me back.  I am yelling her name over and over, but I can’t hear myself, I can only hear her.

But it’s too late- her eyes close as she whispers, “I’m sorry.”

I scream and cry out her name, and fall to the ground, finally able to move, but in vain.  She’s gone, she’s gone, and I can’t do anything.  Nothing, I hear nothing, I see nothing, I can only scream.  Darkness consumes me.

* * *

 

A strangled cry escapes me as I sit straight up in bed, clutching the sheets as if they could save me from this eternal suffering.  I hold my head in my hands, trying not to sob.  It will attract attention, wake everyone up in the dormitory, and if I let the least bit of emotion out, everything will collapse.

I shudder.  I can’t sleep, because if I attempt to, I know she will be in my dreams.  I get up and walk the compound aimlessly.  Nothing can reach me through the muffle in my ears and the brick wall protecting my thoughts.  Only her eyes, bright and pale and beautiful are enough to strike through the wall.

I don’t know how long it’s been since I’ve woken up, but I eventually walk back to the dormitory.  I must have been walking in circles.

When I get back, everyone is awake and packing their belongings.  They must desperately want to leave, because, like me, this place has transformed from being a safe haven of mysteries to a hell that reeks of death and guilt and sorrow.  As I walk in, everyone looks up from their bags- probably taken from a storage room to hold clothes that were given to us- even Caleb.

The other Prior.   _That_ Prior should be the one lying cold on a metal table, pale and lifeless and unresponsive, not Tris, no, not her.  But she’s the one who’s dead, who’s gone.  But I am too exhausted to be angry.  Maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to be.  I shouldn’t be angry- she would want me to forgive him.  Take care of him, even.  

Pain stabs me.  I should not be trusted to protect anyone, not anymore.  Not when my actions killed Uriah, not when Tris is gone now.

I put my head down and walk to my bed and start collecting my belongings, consisting only of my clothes and a gun.  I turn the gun over in my hand and stare at it.  Violence has taken so much from me, even as a child, my father slipping his belt out loop after loop, smashing my mother into the gray walls, locked in the closet for hours.  Uriah, his friends, Tris.  I remember when she couldn’t even hold a gun, when she was afraid of what she became, because she killed Will.  She overcame that- her bravery was something not to be reckoned with.  Only she herself had the strength to weaken it because of that fear.  Maybe that is real heroism- conquering yourself and your weaknesses, and dying for the good of others.

My throat swells at the thought and I can’t breathe.  Just like her, I can’t clutch the gun, this weapon used to take lives, to break them, just like hers.

I place the gun on the pillow and turn away.  I won’t be using it anymore.  Violence has stained my life well enough.

I swallow and zip the bag.  I look around and Cara, Caleb, Christina, and Peter- Cara helping him- have finished as well.  My eyes land on her bed, right next to mine.  The sheets are unmade and messy.  For a moment, I think I see her, blond hair covering her face and mouth as she sleeps, hand brushing the floor between us, exhausted.  For a moment, I lift my hand to brush a stray hair from her mouth.

Then I blink and she is gone.  Pain burns my chest and I walk to her cot.  I realize I am shaking with fear, of what, I don’t know because I’ve lost everything already.  Through the muffle, I hear footsteps and I feel a hand on my shoulder.  I look to see who it is.

Christina.  Her eyes are red and her face is pale, and I think I look the same.  Broken.  She sniffles, and says, “Come on.  Or…” she hesitates.   “Is there something of hers?  Something she brought you want to keep?”

Her eyes cloud with tears, filling up to the brim of her eyelashes, and her voice breaks as she finishes the question.

“I’ll look,” I say, my voice unsteady and shaking.  I blink back the tears and step toward her bed.  I look underneath it, in her trunk, and rummage through the sheets.  But there is nothing but clothes.  Her mother’s journal, I know, she gave to Caleb.  He must have given it back to Matthew- _or his selfish Erudite brain must have kept it to himself_ , I can’t help thinking.  But I stop the thought to go any further because she would have told me to calm down.  No- if she was here, her presence would have been enough to calm me down.

There is nothing of hers, only clothing and the pain burns more.  Her possessions will never take the place of her, nothing can.  I keep thinking she will wake up and walk through the dormitory and break me out of this muffle, this pain, and strike me back to reality with her eyes, beautiful and strong, and press a warm kiss to my lips, but it doesn’t happen.  I don’t know why we think this denial will change our circumstances, and that our will alone can change the way things are.  It won’t.  That denial is cowardice, fleeing from your troubles and curling up, telling yourself it’s not real, that it will change.  I don’t know why I am weak to this cowardice.

As I search through the cot, the smell of her travels through me, sending shivers down my spine.  She smells crisp and new and fresh, living through the sheets spread across the bed and her cleanly folded clothes in the trunk.

But she is gone.  Her belongings, her smell, anything of hers don’t replace _her_.  It won’t ever.

I look back at Christina and shake my head.  She nods, and tears appear on both our eyes.  I grab my bag, and we walk through the door, Cara, Caleb, Zeke, and his mother already waiting outside.  I don’t look back.


	2. two

Christina and I approach them, standing in front of the door, waiting in the daylight the window casts onto the hallway.

        “Ready?” Cara asks.

        “Actually, I think I need to get something.  I think we should…” Zeke protests, his voice shaking.  He gulps.  “We want to spread his ashes in the chasm.”

        Guilt attempts to swallow me, to put me further into the water and build up more of the muffle in my surroundings.  The others around me nod, but I don’t.  I don’t have the strength to even nod.  I only focus on the tile floor of the hallway.

        “Okay,” Zeke says cautiously, steadying his movements.  “I’ll just…get them now.”

        “I’ll go with you and your mom,” Christina offers.  She puts her hand on my shoulder, and I look up reflexively.  Her eyes are full of concern and are more bloodshot than before.  She looks at me expectantly.

        I nod and say, “I think I’m going to walk around.”  My voice chokes because I know where I’m going to go.  I nod again, assuring her more than me.

        We separate, Cara and Caleb going to wait by the truck that will take us back into Chicago; Zeke, his mother, and Christina walking towards the morgue to gather Uriah’s ashes.  I walk, but this time, purposely.

* * *

 

I arrive at the hotel room.  She pushed me down the hallways toward somewhere private, and we ended up here.  I walk toward the couch, where I had dropped her playfully, kissing and laughing.

        I lie onto the bed and face the opposite side.  I woke up that morning to the markings of flight across her collarbone, thinking of what we could do after it was all over, expecting a happy end to war.  Now, I realize my naivety, and that never is there a happy ending in war, that loss blocks the way to new beginnings.  We have to go through the numbing severity of grief before starting over.  I don’t know if I’ll ever reach there.

        The pain comes and I close my eyes, tears touching my cheeks.  She was beautiful, braver and more selfless than any of us.  Her bravery reaching to other people, touching them- it changes them forever.  I know because she did that to me.  I am not angry because of her selflessness- she told me, through Caleb, that she didn’t want to leave me, that she didn’t set out that morning going to a suicide mission, and that she meant to survive.  Caleb would not have survived the death serum, even with the suit, and therefore failing the mission.  Rather than lose him and all the people in the city, she chose her life.   _That_ is bravery and selflessness.  Tris.  Her traits exceeded all the good in others.  More tears come, and the pain hammers my chest, banging uncontrollably.

Once the pain subsides, I open my eyes, and in a moment of desperation, I think I will see her three ravens, her home sealed on one shoulder and on the other the life she chose.

But I don’t.  The other side of the bed is empty and cold.  I breathe heavily, wipe my cheeks and eyes with the heel of my hand, grab my bag and walk out.

* * *

 

I walk through the deserted hallways of the compound toward the Weapons Lab.  I reach the hallway in front of it, and something blocks my air- my lungs don’t function normally anymore because I feel myself trying to breathe, but in vain.  I don’t hear anything and I am shaking, head to toe.

        I step forward.  The vestibule leading to the Weapons Lab is open, blown by the explosion.  The Weapons Lab itself, of course, is empty; for fear that the memory deprived scientists of the Bureau would come in and take any of the serums and cause a panic.

        The death serum was deployed here.  She walked through here, in pain, fighting.  I walk through and see a gun on the floor.  Her gun.  She must have dropped in while under the influence of death serum. That’s why she couldn’t defend herself against David.

        I am not breathing. The muffle has covered my ears fully, and I cannot hear.  I push open the double doors leading into the Weapons Lab.  David sat in his wheelchair in the center and she stood here, I imagine.  I look a few feet away from me and see it.  The box that deployed the memory serum.  I walk toward it.

        When they took her body, they cleaned the blood off the floor, so I am told.  But when I approach it, I can still see dried blood staining the table’s legs maroon, and part of the table close to the box.  Her blood.

        She typed in the numbers of the code, pain pulsing through her every movement, and when it was done, slid to the ground in pain, blood dripping everywhere.  Did she see anyone?  Her mother?  Her father?  Will?

        Did she think of _me_ , leaving _me_?

        My knees, shaking uncontrollably, buckle and I drop to the ground in pain.  I clutch my chest because nothing can stop the exploding fire underneath, my heart banging, seeking a way out of its cage like a wild animal lost in emotion, dying, _dying_ , but not dead enough.  The eruption breaks me, and I am kneeling, crying where she died.  I think I scream her name, or I just want to and am afraid to because I know if I cry out her name, no one will answer, because she’s gone.

        I feel empty, like I am missing something, someone; and I am.  I am hollow, and it drags me underwater, drowning in my own selfish embrace of death; the cold, wet river of my tears enveloping me with loneliness, dreaming of the day when it is over and I will see her once again.

I don’t know how long I stay there, crying and letting everything out.  But when I have the strength to stand again, I whisper, “I love you, Tris.”  I don’t trust myself to contain my emotions any longer, so I leave for the final time.


	3. three

Slowly, as if submersed in water, I walk to the truck that will lead us toward our new lives.  The others are already there.  Zeke is holding a black urn, engraved with gold resembling fire, raging on in his life, in his hilarious personality.  I blink back tears and swallow the guilt rising up inside me, threatening to spill.

“What took you?” asks Christina.

“Just…walking,” I reply.  I don’t want to tell them where I went because, if I do, the emotions will spill out again.

She nods, understanding.  “Sorry I took long,” I say, shrugging to keep the casualty of the conversation, when nothing is casual or normal now.  Nothing ever is.

They all nod, even Zeke.  Amar and George approach us, Amar placing a hand on my shoulder.  I turn a little, not wanting to be pitied, and he pretends nothing happened.  They said the night before that they wanted to drive us back, and that they also want to see the city once more.

“Come on, hop in,” he says.  Amar and George walk to the front of the truck, Amar driving and George in the passenger’s seat.  Cara, Caleb, and Hana climb in on one side, then Christina, Zeke, and I, dragging our bags with us.

It takes a few minutes for me to realize that I am sitting next to Zeke, one of his legs dangling over the back of the truck.  I take a deep breath and place my head in my hands.  He must hate me.  More than I hate myself.

“Everyone okay back there?” George asks, looking back at us.  I look up and- even though I’m really not and I don’t know if I ever will be- I nod, leaning back on the side of the truck.  Amar starts to drive back to Chicago, our home, stained with the murder of an entire faction, Tris’s parents, her friends, the deaths of Erudite.  Though it is our home, it is also a place dirty with filth and blood.  I once told her that I had too many bad memories there.  Now, I don’t know which is filled with them more, the Bureau or Chicago.

We are halfway toward the train tracks when Zeke and Hana look at each other, and his mother nods at him, and they turn their glance to me.  I gulp, fearing they will explode at me, and the fragments will embed into my guilt even more.  Despite my thoughts, this doesn’t happen.

Zeke looks at me, waiting for me to look back.  But I am too afraid.

“Four,” he says.  There is no escaping it.  She would want me to face this.  But she is not here to steady me, to be here with me to face it, like when I brushed her hair to inject the simulation serum, and she threw her arm up to protect us, drawing my father’s belt back to defend us.  Always selfless, always brave.

“Four,” he says again, and I turn my head his way, but I look somewhere south of his eyes.  Guilt traps me as my glance turns to the urn, and fear paralyzes my eyes there, staring at the curling inferno contrasting against the Dauntless black of the vase.

He clears his throat.  “I just want to say,” he whispers, low and serious, and I think he will chastise me; he will condemn me for doing what I did.  Uriah.  His smile burns in me still, but it is not enough to stifle the guilt.  But it is not what I expect.

“We’re going to try to forgive you,” he says, clearing his throat.  But that cannot erase the raw feeling of his voice, the scratchiness of it, or my trespasses.  “Cara and the others told me what really happened.  You didn’t plant the bombs, and you had no idea what the group was planning to do. You didn’t know it would kill anyone.”

His voice is caught in the gripping net of my sorrow.  But he continues.  “Anyway, you never meant to kill anyone.  Definitely not Uriah.”

I should feel something, shouldn’t I?  I should feel the wind of relief brush my senses back into my ears, and heal the scars of guilt carved into me.  But I don’t.  I am only slightly aware of my knuckles, clenched white, nails digging into my palm, and I only stare at the urn he cradles in his hands.  That is what he is reduced to now.  Ashes, and he’s gone, only ashes.  He was so much more than just ashes, nondescript and dry.  No, he was never dry of humor and smiles and fun.

I realize, after my palm stings from my grip, that he is waiting for me to say something.  I force myself to look at him, right in his eyes.

They are bloodshot and tired, but I don’t see hatred or anger in them. 

“I—thank you,” I say, but I don’t sound relieved, I sound tight and hurt.  I can’t cry, no, not right now.  I refuse to cry; refuse to let the tears touch my cheeks, because it will all spill out if I do.  Instead, I grit my teeth strongly and look up, using all my will to not let anything out, and swallow.

He nods.  “And…” he says, and I know what’s coming, and I will everything within me to stop the tidal wave from rushing from me onto the shore of my cheeks, in sobs and tears the way she cried when she felt the full force of the loss of her parents, when I was there to hold her then, to steady her.  But she is not here to return the favor.

“I’m sorry.  She was amazing, stronger than anyone I’ve ever known.  I know you really loved her, and she really loved you, more than me and Shauna, more than any two people I’ve known.

I feel waves threatening to drown me, and I feel it suffocating me, stifling my senses, because he said _loved_.  Past tense.  I want to scream, and sob, and yell at him, _no, I_ love _her, I love her in the present tense, and I still love her_!  Just because she is dead, because she is gone does not mean I stop loving her.  If I had stopped, it wouldn’t have hurt this much, it wouldn’t explode in my chest, thundering inside me.  Then the lightning strikes when I realize, she isn’t going to be there when I wake up, I won’t see the ravens sealed in flight along her collarbone.  She won’t smile and say, “Good morning, Tobias,” and kiss me sweetly, taking my hand.

It breaks me, yet still I grit my teeth and gulp down a sob to at least stay silent.  Tears escape and my heart pounds and aches.  I feel my Adam’s apple bobbing up and down inside my throat as I look at the roof of the truck.  All I can do is nod; I nod as he grips my shoulder and releases it, looking away.  I never enjoyed seeing people cry, and I’m guessing he isn’t very fond of it either. 


	4. four

We arrive at the gate of the city, previously Amity headquarters, and climb off the truck.  The next train comes, rushing with speed, and we all start to run.  First Hana, then Zeke, then Caleb and Cara climb onto the train, Zeke helping Caleb and Cara get on.  Christina climbs in with no struggle. 

I run and run, remembering the last time I did this, when she pulled me in and kissed me, tasting of sweat and strength.  The platform ends a few feet in front of me, and I grab onto the train handle, heaving myself onto it, admiring the thrill and adrenaline rush I experience every time the Dauntless jump onto trains.  I am out of breath and dangling on the side of the train, and when the height terrifies me, I pull myself in.

Zeke holds the urn close to him, cradling it in his arms.   I breathe heavily, thinking not only of Tris, but of Uriah, how I could have watched out for him more, and if I had listened to Tris, he wouldn’t be in a black jar; we wouldn’t be tossing whatever remains of him into the chasm.  Now, they have both been taken from us, from _me_ , because I didn’t listen to her.  I couldn’t save her, either.  Was there something I could have done to stop her?  Anything?

I couldn’t have.  I know that. 

“Let’s go,” says Zeke, and he runs and jumps.  Then Hana, then Cara, Caleb, Christina, Amar, George.  I am left.  Then I run, savoring my last moments in the never stopping train and jump.   First, I am suspended in the air, defying gravity, thinking of plummeting into the cement below, but I land on the rough gravel, and the moment is gone.  My feet sting and I get up and walk to shake the vibrations off.  Zeke helps his mother up, and Christina helps Cara up as well.  Caleb, surprisingly, landed well.  Then I remember- he did this before, the day of the simulations with Tris, her father, Peter, and my father.  I almost choke at the thought of me, running an entire faction of mindless murderers, Tris’s parents’ murders, and when her voice pierced my own mindless odyssey.  Who else can pierce through _this_ senseless journey without her?

“Four!” I look up immediately.  Everyone is looking at me expectantly- someone must have said something to me multiple times without an answer, stuck in my soliloquy.

“Are you deaf or something, you pansycake?” Zeke shouts at me, an almost grin on his face.  I feel the corners of my mouth twitch- pansycake.  Using Uriah’s language at his own funeral.  Clever.

“What’d you ask me?”

“I said do you want to jump first?”

I try my best to keep the smile plastered on as we think of her.  First jumper.  This is not only to honor Uriah, not only to honor Tris, but for all whom we lost in the war.  Will, Marlene, Lynn, Tori, Edward, Tris, and so many more.  “Of course,” I yell back.

I walk toward the ledge, my hands shaking as I grab the hem of my shirt.  She stood here.  I imagine her small, fragile, birdlike body standing here in Abnegation gray.  The height makes me imagine myself plummeting downward and landing on the concrete.  But I shouldn’t think.  I just bend my knees and jump.

I land hard on the net, fear suffocating my every breath, but all I can think is how I just jumped first.  The Stiffs jumped first.

I climb across the net and pull myself over, blinking tears away from my eyes.  I can still see her, blonde hair swinging as she runs from place to place, running to me to press a hard kiss to my lips, free.  I can see her, but I don’t.

Screams and whoops fall onto the net, bouncing high.  I catch a glimpse of the dark tan skin and short brown hair.  Christina.  It brings me back to Choosing Day, and I remember the second jumper was dressed in black and white.  Christina was the second jumper.

Despite the occasion, my mouth attempts to curl and I hold out my hand to help her down.  She jumps down and shouts, “You can go!”

Once everyone is done jumping, we look around.  I know we are all thinking of those we have lost who walked these halls, running through, shouting and screaming in Dauntless pride and joy.  I know because while we smile, our eyes also water at the thought of them.  I wonder if they see what I see- her pale blue eyes, blonde hair.  I look at Christina and Cara, looking at each other with tears in their eyes.  They must see his shaggy hair, crease in between his forehead, running and smiling- Will.

We walk toward the chasm, where Zeke, Shauna, and I talked, where I brought her to our first kiss.  Zeke opens the door, and almost steps back in surprise to see who it is.

Sitting in her wheelchair is Shauna, looking at Zeke, smiling sadly.  “Hey,” she says.

“How’d you get here?” Zeke asks, happy to see her.

“I have my ways,” she grins.  “Besides, I know you would come here to spread Uriah’s ashes.”  Her eyes water, her voice breaking at the end, and she looks down.  But she recovers and looks back up, her eyes skimming through us, troubled.  “Where’s Tris?”

I step back reflexively, her name a dagger through my heart.  I can’t say it.  I can’t.  I refuse to tell her.

I can see when her eyes flicker into pity and sorrow that she understands.  “Oh, God.  No way.  I’m so sorry, Four.”

I nod because I don’t trust myself to answer.  But our focus should be on Uriah now.

We walk to the rocks looking out onto the chasm.  Zeke opens the urn.

“Well, I guess we’ll start with you Noses over there,” he says, nodding toward Caleb and Cara.

Caleb pinches the ashes, and yells, “To Uriah!”  Spreading the ashes into the chasm, he hands the urn to Cara.

“Uriah!” she yells as she repeats the ritual.  Next George, then Amar spread them, and Amar grins as he recalls Uriah’s humor, yelling out his infamous behavior to us.  Perhaps the smiling and yelling embarrassment toward a lifetime of fun and humor is part of the Dauntless funeral.  But I don’t think that is what this is- I think this is part of _Uriah’s_ funeral.

Before I know it, the urn is in my hands.  I don’t hesitate as I grab a handful of what used to be Uriah.  “Uriah!” I yell.  Before I release his gravelly remains, I whisper, “I’m sorry.”  Tears threatening, rising in my eyes, I pass the urn to Christina.

She has tears streaming down her face, black from something in her eyes.   She also grabs a handful.  “Uriah!” she yells, and his ashes float toward the water.

Shauna is next- “Uriah!” she shouts at the top of her lungs, pointing at Zeke, wearing sad smiles.

Hana smiles, and with a certain amount of dignity, takes the urn and grabs what her hand can take.  “Uriah!  I will always, always be proud of you, my dear son.”  Her eyes are glossy and she lets her son go for the last time.  Zeke is last, and tears cover his cheeks even though he is smiling.

Grabbing the urn, he shouts, “Uriah! I’ll miss you, buddy.  I love you.”  He whispers the last part, but we all hear it.  He holds the urn out and shakes what remains of Uriah’s ashes, floating into the churning water below.  Taking the top, he closes it and sets it down on the rocks.  We chant his name once, then twice, and a third time.

Then we stay there for what seems like an eternity; silent, watching the last bits of ash disappear down below.


	5. five

********

I am standing in a field of grass and flower, surrounded by the smell of pollen and a sweet, dreaming aura.  The aroma travels through me, like a breath of fresh air, the way it fills you with a nauseating feeling, refreshing and clean.

Then I see her, in the middle of a field, besieged by sunflowers and sunlight, wearing a white dress like an angel.  She is beautiful and strong, small and short and thin, but wielding power more than the world.  She turns and her blonde hair shines against the sun, and nothing else exists except her.

“Tris?” I say.

“Tobias,” she says, and her breath is a sigh of relief as I run toward her, faster than I have ever ran before, because if I don’t, she will be gone, she will disappear and I won’t be able to see her, to kiss her.  I won’t be able to touch her, or caress her.  Just looking at her should be enough, shouldn’t it?  It’s not.  It’s not.

I wrap my arms around her and hold her.  She smells clean and like sweat and sweet like the flowers around us.  I pull away, and look at her eyes, pale blue and striking as the sky around us.  We kiss and it lasts forever, tasting of sweet and tart essence of apples, her lips no longer chapped and cold, touching her cheek to slow the kiss, sliding my hands down her back.  Her hands touch all the places I am marked with ink, my rib cage, slowly; then climbing up my back and to my neck.

It brings shivers up my spine, the way I used to whenever someone touched my back, striped with scars, but I ignore it.  I ignore it because she’s here, she’s here, and she is warm and alive and with me.

Finally we pull away to breathe, sharing breaths and savoring the taste of them.  “Tobias,” she says.  “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” I say, and it is a relief how she says my name, a sigh from her lips like a first breath.

“Tobias,” she says, but I kiss her, afraid she’ll say she has to leave me, so I savor her warmth and the breaths we share, kissing her sweetly.

When we pull away again, I touch her forehead with mine, entwining my fingers with hers, clenching the warm surface of her palms.  I can’t let her go.  “Tobias,” she says again, and I know I cannot stop her.  “You know I can’t stay.”

I feel everything in me start to crumble into her, even though I knew she would say that eventually.  “Tris, please,” I plead, but I know it’s not in her control.  “I love you.”

“I love you, too, Tobias.”

The sun starts to set around us, and the darkness begins to take over, and even though I’m still holding her in my arms, I feel her warmth, the steel blue flame fade with the sunlight, and with it she is gone.

* * *

 

I force myself to peel open my eyes.  But I want to stay in that dream forever, seeing her and kissing her and talking to her.  But it was a dream.

The tears start to come, hot and fast.  Pain explodes in my chest as I sit up in my bed, in the apartment I lived in for two years in Dauntless, where she slept when Peter, Drew, and Al attacked her and I slept on the floor. 

We’ve stayed here for almost a week after Uriah’s funeral because there is nowhere else to go- Hana, Zeke, and Shauna all living in their previous homes; Christina going back to Candor to live with her family; and Cara and Caleb back to Erudite headquarters.  I’ve learned that not all are greedy and selfish, that though they thirst for knowledge, not all of them use their knowledge for power.  Amar and George have gone back outside the fence to the Bureau to help them there. 

I release a heavy breath to steady my breathing.  It is cold, and colder without her by my side.

It has been almost a month since the fall of the Bureau and the memory serum release.  Throughout that time, peace has been restored in the city, the gates are open, and the truth has been spread to the people of the experiments.  Some are living in the fringe, some may have gone to the Bureau itself, and some have gone to their former homes to attempt to lead a life without factions.  We have all been coping with loss and the burden it brings upon us.

The dreams and nightmares I have of her are daily.  Some nights, it is best to walk around the Dauntless compound instead of sleep, though I am exhausted in ways I have never been.

Tonight, after the dream of longing, I decide it is not one of those nights- I would rather cry in the comfort of my own apartment than in public.  As I think of her, strong and certain of us and her, I see how she made me stronger.  When she stepped in front of my father’s belt and threw it back, the power she brandished and the way she looked at me, convinced me that I could muster as much power and strength as well.  When she told me that I was whole, that I deserved something, deserved her love- that was the first time I felt that way, the first time someone told me I was undamaged.  Just as I always insisted that she was strong when she felt weak, she always insisted of my entirety, that I was not damaged.  The animal inside me screams for more, for her, begs for release from the cage it is in, and I let it.


	6. six

The intoxicating taste of alcohol burns my lips, slurring and sloping my voice and vision.  Zeke also stands beside me, along with Shauna, also drunk, but a bit more than me.

We stand near the chasm, laughing- for what, I don’t know, and I have a feeling I won’t remember anything about laughing tomorrow.

We walk, nearing the tattoo shop.  Since Tori isn’t here, we have no idea who is the new tattoo artist.  Bud should be there since he was Tori’s assistant.

“Hey Four, Shauna!” Zeke yells, even though we are only a few feet apart.  “Want to get some tattoos?”

Shauna whoops in delight as Zeke runs toward Bud, looking out of the shop to evaluate the commotion, without a word of approval from either one of us.  I shake my head, attempting to clear the fuzziness out of my mind, and run to catch up with Zeke.

In the tattoo shop, Zeke decides to pick out something matching with Shauna- a snake curling behind their ears.  Through the alcohol, the honor for Uriah pierces through and strikes me with a headache.  I feel warm and fuzzy, like I should do something like that.  Pain slaps me, bringing me to my senses as if I didn’t have any alcohol tonight.  I should get a tattoo for Tris.

Zeke and Shauna have finished, wincing in delight from the stinging senses of the tattoo.  “What are you going to get, Four?  Come on, have some fun!”

I walk towards Bud, still feeling drunk enough to not be able to walk straightly.  “I want a bird,” I tell him, taking off my shirt and pointing to my chest, close to my heart.  “A raven, right here.”

Colors blur as he draws the raven onto my heart, marking flight just like on her collarbone.  He pats my shoulder when he finishes, though I didn’t notice at all.  I must have been more intoxicated than I thought.

I stumble past the chasm, waving goodbye to Zeke and Shauna, who are oblivious to my presence since they are kissing near the chasm.

I arrive back at my apartment and fall onto the bed, unable to hold myself any longer, and sleep.


	7. seven

Her blonde hair tickles my nose, waking me up.  She lays next to me, my arms around her, head buried in my chest.  Beautiful.

Her eyes open; a piercing blue that wakes me up each time I glance at them.  So pale and striking that she requires interest.

“Good morning,” she says, and her voice is as cordial as morning dew.  Her leg wraps around my waist, creating an entanglement of our bodies, sharing the warmth together.  She is warm.  And she is here.

“Good morning,” I say.  Her white dress drapes around my hip and across my legs, like a ghost visiting the living.  No- it is exactly that.

I kiss her, and savor the kiss, savoring the moment until the time where she has to leave.  She tastes of skies and sweetness but salty all at once.

I notice my chest is bare; my shirt forgotten in the midst of my alcoholic adventures in the tattoo realm, but I was completely conscious of what I wanted drawn on my chest.  Her fingers hover over the bird, careful and gracious.  Finally she traces it, and my chest sparks with warmth radiating from her touch.

Twisting my head to keep her hand there, I press my lips to her ravens.  One for each family she left behind, she had said.  But now it’s not true.  It’s for each member of the Prior family who has flown away.  Natalie, Andrew, and her.  No longer Beatrice.  Tris.

Now her fingers trace the Dauntless tattoo on my rib cage; the pain of that night of my first game of initiation forgotten.  This pain is much worse.

She is done as I kiss her last bird and she places her head on my chest.  Her hands start from the top of my spine, on the Dauntless tattoo, then slowly creeping toward the cradling Abnegation hands. 

I take the smell of her in and touch her shoulders gently, remembering her right shoulder is wounded.  But does she still feel pain? Is everything numb to her?  Is that wound; that battle scar gone? 

I trace the Dauntless tattoo and the Abnegation symbol with my fingers, as she does the same to mine.  Her hands slowly slide down my spine, reaching each faction and its surroundings.  I don’t breathe.  Instead, she breathes on my chest, her hot breaths soothing the stiffness of my grief.

She is done as she reaches my hip, and her hands stay there.  I cup her face with my hands, bringing her to eye level.  Our lips meet, desperate and full of longing, until she sighs against the kiss and says, “I love you, Tobias.”

I know what this means.  She has to leave.  Again.  “I love you, Tris.”

The sun rises, though I am sure it had risen before, and she disappears- an angel, her light blending with the brightness of the sun.

* * *

My eyelids remain closed, like all dreams that are similar to this, when she is here, and with me.  Other ones, I wake screaming her name.  In them, she is dying, and I watch helplessly.

I don’t open my eyes.  Instead, I thank God for this dream.

I realize why and how we love each other.  I’ve thought about it before, but never at this deep a meaning.  Before, I knew I loved her only because I respected her.  Because she was Abnegation, too, and her selflessness outweighed any other.

But now, I realize more.

We love each other because of the utmost respect we have for one another.  When she jumped first and when I proved to her I wasn’t the sadistic animal Eric was.  We love each other because we save each other, over and over again.  From Peter, Drew, and Al.  She saved me from running to the factionless.  She saved me from my own destruction, waking me up from the mindless simulation Jeanine ensued upon me.  And over and over again.

But there is more.

We love each other because we heal one another.  We collide over and over, thinking there will be destruction, but instead, we sharpen one another, and heal scars long imbedded into our flesh.  When her hands ran down my back, the scars were traced also.  Like an invisible force in her finger, tracing them healed them, filling the skin so no scars show, sparking a forgiveness pushed away by hatred that now seems possible.

My eyes open in tears, swimming but not pouring down.  I breathe shakily.

I sit up in bed. The moment is gone, though I really am not wearing a shirt in the winter.  I dress and put my shoes on.

* * *

 

I decided to roam the compound.  Surprisingly, it is early in the morning.  I expected to have a hangover, murky and dangerously disoriented near the chasm, but I’m not.  She must have woken me up from that too.  My mouth twitches at the thought, but comes down from the gravity that has been weighing me down for 18 years.

I turn in the endless labyrinth, that even I, who has lived here for two years, do not know where I am.

Then I see him.  Caleb.

The sight of him unravels me, and I am struggling to retain myself not to lunge onto him, or turn and run away, or to drop in tears.  The first two are options of cowards.  The latter I would have done in the privacy of my own apartment, not in public.

Crying is not an act of cowardice.  I do not know why people think that.  It is an act that you are embarrassed to admit, or just too shy to reveal, but it is not the absence of bravery that induces you to cry.  It is the animal parts raging inside of you, desperate for relief, but you are the humane, brave one to face it and cage it.

He turns and sees me in surprise.  The month has taken a toll in him.  His hair is a bird’s nest, long and messy, tussled around in a careless state of freedom.  His green, bloodshot eyes waver, a pile of heaped leaves in the autumn wind.  The bags under his eyes are distinct and ugly.  I wonder if I look the same.

“Tobias, I…” he pauses, clutching his fists in panic.  Then I see it in his hands.

It is an orange tube, the size of a forefinger.  It is filled with pills.


	8. eight

“Caleb…what is that?” I ask him, fearing the worst.  Fearing that he would swallow them, swallow his way out of this suffering, like a cheater who discovered the horrible and easy choice.  I try to contain the anger, fueling up inside me.

“I…” he says, unsure of whatever he is about to say.

“Tell me.  Tell me now.”

He clutches the bottle of pills like it is a safe haven; when, in reality, it is a coward’s way out.  It strikes me to realize that this is what I looked like to Christina when I stole the vial of memory serum.  A coward.

“It’s pills.  I just…I don’t want to bear this anymore, this guilt, I don’t.  I don’t.  I don’t want anything anymore, it’s too much, how can I…I…”

_I don’t…My family is all_ dead _or traitors; how can I…_

Her words echo in my mind, and it surprises me I can even remember her voice because it has been so long since I have heard it in my conscious realm.  I told her that I was her family now.  It still rings true.  Now, I have no family.  She is gone.

It stings, yet I push on, and see that they are beating around the same path.  He feels so alone, just like she did when she shot Will, when she had no one.  But I was there.  I was there.  Christina was there when I could not. 

Who is there for Caleb?  Who fully forgives him other than Tris?  Who can watch over him and help him through?

There is only me.  I am the only one willing because I vowed to her if she forgave him, I would try to as well.

I keep my word to her.  Promises, I realize, extend beyond death and the life after.

As I walk toward him, the features on his face are more distinct.  He is tired, exhausted of the guilt he bears and the burden Tris’s death has brought upon him.  His eyes are as crimson as an apple.

I grasp the hand the clutches the pills, my anger dissipating with each movement I make.  “Don’t do this.  If you try to do this, I will make your life hell.  Caleb, if you swallow that, you will waste her sacrifice.  You’ll throw it away like it meant nothing to you.  She saved your life so you could live.  Savor it.  Don’t try to contradict her.”

He has slid down to my knees, crying, still clutching the pills.  I kneel down so we are eye level.  “She was always right, wasn’t she?”

He nods, sobbing, his grip loosening around his suicide, and I wrench it from his grasp, and pocket it.  I’ll throw it into the chasm later.

“It’s…my…fault…why…I don’t…I can’t…” he screams between sobs.  He isn’t making any sense, but in some way, to me, he is.

“Caleb, she forgave you.  She loved you.  It wasn’t about what you did to her.  It wasn’t how you were close in the past.  It wasn’t about anything.  She loved you and she forgave you solely because you are her brother.”

I set my hands on his shoulders to steady him.  I have to tell him.  It may break me, but it is what Tris wants of me, I am sure of it.  “And I told her that morning that I would try my best to forgive you because I love her.”

He has stopped sobbing, though he violently shakes every few moments.  He looks at me, shocked, but relieved.

“Please do.  It’s my fault she’s dead, I should have gone for her, I should be dead!” he screams.  “Why aren’t I _dead_?!”

Suddenly, I am furious, outraged at his stubbornness.  He doesn’t get it.

“She forgave you.  She let you live.  I’ll tell you the truth, I’d rather you be dead than her.  I’d sooner push you into the chasm than let her die!” I yell.  But I calm myself down with the sound of her voice.  “But I resist it.  It would be wasting her sacrifice, and if you did that, it would be wasting her death.

“She forgave you,” I say, meeting his eyes.  “Is it so hard to forgive yourself?”

“It’s not that simple!” he cries, echoing in the compound.

“Caleb, try.  Just think of her and try.  She loved you.  Don’t do anything rash.”

I wait until he looks at me and nods.  I straighten and hold out my hand for him to get up.  He doesn’t take it.

I walk away from him, warmth brewing in my chest and a headache pounding in my brain.

* * *

 

I walk toward the railing of the chasm and take the bottle of pills out of my pocket.  The orange color is ugly, clear and misleading.  It causes the colors of the pills inside to seem orange, when in truth they are white.

With all my might, I throw it into the rushing waters below, churning and disappearing with the movement, until the orange is no longer seen.  It will never be forgotten.


	9. nine

_ “I’ll be your family now.” _

_“I love you.”  It is the first time she’s said it, clear and perfect, with her voice, low for a girl’s, and her mouth moving with passion.  I love her.  I want to hear her say it again._

_“Say it again.” I plead._

_“I love you, Tobias.”_

_My lips, cold and chapped, press against her, careful not to sag against her, afraid she will drift off into the wind.  She was almost taken from me today.  I know there is a God above that has mercy on me, so that He would spare her.  Nothing else matters now._

_“I love you, too,” I say, and I realize that every day we fight and lie and run, we save each other.  It is our nature.  I need her, and she needs me.  It will be that way forever._

* * *

 

Loneliness breaks me when I jerk awake.  I would have told her about the dream, how I went back in time and touched her again.

But it is not satisfying.  The soft skin layered over hard, solid rock of loyalty and bravery, clothed in the strength of her sweat- I want to forever remember that touch; I long to live with it forever.  I still want it, to touch her paradox with my own hands- the short skinny girl, looking vulnerable, wrapped in forgiveness and mercy and courage that drives her to sacrifice.

I saw her, and the respect I had for her seemed to spontaneously combust out of my soul.  Her eyes, as she stared at me, waiting, were such a pale blue that I dreamed in them; the skies radiating through the light of her blonde hair, tied in an Abnegation bun.  I love her.  But her absence drags a dagger through my side and brings me underwater.

I sigh, ungrateful at my awakening, but I made a resolution yesterday to check on Caleb.  But before that, I also made the resolution to tell the others.

I put my shoes on and walk out the door, striding toward Zeke and Shauna’s apartment, also housed in with his mother, Hana.  Footsteps echo against the hard metal, mixing in with the sound of water rushing.

I knock on the door, and it is immediately opened by Zeke.

“Hey,” I say.

“Hi.  What’s up?” he says, his head popping out of the door, only opened partly and not showing his body.

“Can everyone meet in my apartment?”

“Yeah, sure.  I’ll get us out to there.  What about Christina?”

“I’ll get her.”

“Yeah, okay,” he says, and looks at me curiously, his eyebrows furrowing in concern.  “Is everything okay, man?”

“No.”

“Yeah, sorry.  I shouldn’t have asked.”

“It’s fine,” I say, and he claps me on the back as I walk away to Candor.

* * *

 

Christina greets me with a sad smile that channels every single one of our emotions.  I tell her to follow me, that it is important.  We arrive back at my apartment, the room full of us.  I told Cara and Caleb to come to, and they have.  Caleb knows what this is about by the way he looks at me with pleading eyes, but I turn away.  This is for his benefit, anyway.

_This is for your own good._

I almost jump up in the air in fear, panic that I have become like him.  But I am not.  I know it. 

“Hey, guys,” I address everyone.

“Hey, Four,” Zeke says.  It is amazing.  I have done the most wrong to him, and yet he is able to ease my nervous shifting of my skin, like I have an audience, and be as friendly as nothing ever happened between us.

“So, you’re probably wondering why I asked you to come here today,” I start.  And I tell them of Caleb, and her, and how she forgave him, how we should forgive him, and how we should help him with his burden and guilt, and somehow I am wiping my eyes until they are raw, somehow I begin to break in front of them, and it terrifies me.  It terrifies me that I am suddenly alone without her hand to steady me.  It breaks me when I realize it is not just him carrying some weight every loss has brought upon us.  Can I ever glue myself together?  Will I ever be one piece again?  Or will pieces of me always be with her?  Will they float up into the air and remind us that I belong to someone else and someone belongs to me?


	10. ten

I stand on the ledge of the Hancock Building, the wind whipping across my face, threatening to push me off, plummeting down straight toward my death.  I swallow bile.

I know what to do.  I’ve always known.  It’s not real.  It’s not.

What is real is that Tris is dead.  At times, I think I’ve accepted it.  At other times, I still think I have the ultimate power to bring her back, travel to the Bureau, back to the time when we were young and alive and powerful.  But it is impossible.

I can’t think right now.  All I can do is jump.

Muffled screams are suffocated by the air and stifling heat around me as my face lands, a burst of pain resounding, and the fear landscape moves on to the next fear.

I have not entered the fear landscape room since before the Allegiant were sent outside the fence.  Nor have I entered Dauntless headquarters ever since apartments were opened close to a river outside the fence.  Slowly, we have been rebuilding and rebuilding around the fence, around Amity headquarters, made Merciless Mart decent, and refurnished the factionless abandoned camps with new buildings.  The Abnegation buildings are occupied by newcomers looking for a place to live, and so have the Hancock building and Erudite headquarters.  Zeke, Shauna, Hana, Christina, Amar, and George have decided to stay close to their former homes, and Cara and Caleb also—in apartments near Millennium Park. 

But me—I have not set foot in an Abnegation home since the day Christina stopped me from losing myself, lost in the insanity of hopelessness.  I chose to live far away from any of my former homes.  Too many memories that sting me each time I see a knife, a gun, a tattoo parlor.  I never told anyone why, of course.  They knew to figure it out themselves.

We see each other on a regular basis.  I have no occupation in this New City. 

I take a step forward, questioning why I came here and injected myself with a highly illegal simulation serum.  But I remember where Dauntless leadership kept the drug.   It was routine for me, and I was curious to see what was still inside.

To see who was still inside.

The walls slam against my back, forcing a groan out of me, trapping me in the dark.  Monsters creep up against the wood, grating the surface, coming for me.  I remember when I thought that.  I remember when I thought that was all I was afraid of.

I know what to do.  I lift my hands up, thinking out of routine and instinct, though I have not touched a needle since a year ago, and smash the walls, breaking and splintering the wood.  Gone.

Dread fills me as I move forward in the fear landscape.  Just like I know what to do in the previous fears, I know who comes next.

I have not met my parents since the year has passed.  Evelyn, no doubt, is somewhere in the fringe, striving to survive, making a living by working and socializing with new people.  A new life is possible for her.

Marcus, however, I have not wanted to think about.  But I constantly do.  I realized that I should not think of him, that he should not hover over my mind like a dark cloud that latches onto your memories.  I have decided to let him go, drift off into the unknown oblivion of the forgotten.  This, I think, is worse than beating him as he did to me.

As expected, the mirror appears before me.  Marcus appears in the mirror.  I am him.  But no.  I know better.

I kneel down before simulation Marcus can grab a hold of me, and smash the mirror with both hands.  Glass scatters about the floor, almost imbedding itself into my skin—but it doesn’t.  It flows freely around me, but never touches me.

Still, my belly slacks in the middle and the hair on my knuckles bristles my skin.  I close my eyes as panic attempts to consume me.  I picture the blue sculpture my mother gave me, the sign of defiance.  Slowly, I feel my muscles gaining control, the hair disappearing.  And I think of her, like I always do.  I see her collarbone, marked with flight and freedom, and all doubt of my identity dissipates. 

I open my eyes, and pure fear shatters my bones.  This is her fear.  This is the one where I am forced to watch her die, helpless and bloody.  But if it’s already happened, does the fear vanish?  Or is it replaced with something worse?

I swallow bile, and walk forward.

She stands before me.  Hair, the length when she was an initiate; the icy blue flame is sharp in her eyes.  But I don’t smell her the way I used to, the way I took the sweat and strength in, the way I taste the salt and sweetness of her lips.  I hadn’t realized I’ve run up to her, put my arms around her, and kissed her.  But she is in my arms, and my lips are on hers, and the feeling is lost.  Even my dreams were more vivid than this.  What is this?

When I pull back, she opens her mouth, but no sound comes out of her lips.  I hold her tighter, and scream and I feel tears in the corners of my peripheral vision.  Panic overcomes me as her hair changes from blonde to brown to black to red to a variety of different colors, and so do her eyes.  The piercing value in them is missing.

Now I am screaming, louder than I can remember, wailing that I miss her and that it isn’t fair, asking her what is going on, because I think I know what this fear is.  I just don’t want to say it. 

The features and colors of her hair and eyes and skin flicker between hues until the inevitable occurs.  She becomes this black-and-white paper dimension that is unreachable to me.

She only stares at me, unfeeling eyes slowly turning fully black, and appearing to only own eye sockets.

My kneels buckle, and I fall, elbows and arms around my head, blocking out the sounds of my own wails, and scream and scream until I have no voice left.  Tears flow freely down my face.  I am a mess.

I have to get out.  I need to get out of here.  How?

I think of her.  I think of her eyes, made of ice, demanding such attention; I think of her lips, the way they tasted of salt and sweet and the sugary lemon fizz against mine; I think of the way she held my hand, how small but warm it was and how it brought me to another world but kept me grounded in reality at the same time.

When I open my eyes and close my mouth, the horrible image that stood before me is gone, and I am kneeling down in an empty simulation room.


	11. eleven

I step outside, and look around.  I almost jump back in surprise, but I was screaming so loud that I shouldn’t be startled.

Christina waits for me outside the fear landscape room, arms crossed against her chest, her jaw set, her tan face as stern as it can get.

“Tobias,” says Christina, and her voice comes out the complete opposite of her stone face.  It is as sweet as morning dew, the way adults speak to toddlers they’ve been worrying about.  “Why would you go back in there?”

We speak like this at times, and it has become a habit.  Her Candor qualities seem to rub off on me for the greater good.

I open my mouth, but my voice must be hoarse from crying.  I close it with a snap and shake my head.  I’ve come to be more comfortable with my friends—we’ve all been ravaged by war and loss that there is no point in pretending to be stronger than all of them.  Our strengths aren’t measure by how much we cry or how much we suffer; it is measured by how much we survive through it all.  This way, everyone is as strong as the rest.

She puts her hand on my shoulder, and for once, I don’t push it off.  “Was Tris in there?”

Hearing her name makes me cringe, like someone has pushed a dagger in my side and I can barely breathe.  But I have to tell her.

I know what that fear was.  That fear was of forgetting her, of someone taking her from my memory, that I would never be able to see skies trapped in the lingering eyes, that I would never smell and feel the strength wrapped within the small body of an Abnegation girl, that she would never be real to me again.  I am afraid she will recede to the back of my mind and become a figment of my imagination.  I am terrified.

“Hello?  You in there, Tobias?”

“Yeah, what, sorry?”

“I said, can we still call you Four or what?”

I almost smile.  Tris always changed me, changing me fear landscape, changing the world around me, changing the way I talk, act, and say things.  Even beyond her death she still changes me.

“Still Four.  But she’s in there.”

My voice catches.  I have to go on.  I have to tell someone, if not, I will explode, and the dam will break and the water will rush out and it will be the end.  “Instead of watching her die, I have to watch her disappear in front of me.

“My fear is forgetting her.”

It breaks.  We walk to my apartment, watching the river flow past us, shoulder to shoulder, trapped in our own cage of sorrow.  Though Christina doesn’t talk, she helps me, and is the friend Tris saw in her, the loyal friend I see her as now.


	12. twelve

Two years.

Two years since the fall of the Bureau.  Two years since the black horrors of war have ended.  Two years since the dawn of beginnings began.

Two years since her death.

Tris still lives on in my memories, as do Uriah, Will, and Marlene.  Tori.  Yet the ravaging of war will never leave us; the scars molded into our shapes and structures that their marks will stay with us.

I stand in the snow, falling softly as I rub my hands to keep them warm.  Johanna Reyes asked me to meet her in front of Amity headquarters, where, slowly, workers and farmers have grown plants and crops, blossoming with green and pushing the boundaries of yellow and barren land far beyond what used to reek of death.

I’ve met her several times after the treaty was agreed on, but it was a social outing and always just to catch up, according to her.  But I know it is always to check on me.

Word spread that Tris had died, that she had saved our lives.  Some believed the truth, but some doubted that a small, plain girl from Abnegation would ever do it.  They accuse us of lying, that Christina, Zeke, Shauna, and I had done it ourselves, that she was only killed along the way.  The disbelief stings like wildfire.

Johanna did not call me here on social terms, I suspect.  But for what, I have no idea.

Footsteps approach and I spin around to see the trademark scar over her eye, the hair she used to cover it with hanging on the side.  I was pleased when I noticed that she did not care if anyone saw or not.  A scar, not to disappear, but to strengthen her.

“Hello, Tobias,” Johanna says.

“Johanna,” I say, and we shake hands.  I cannot say that I have grown used to the sentiment.

“How are you?” she says, eyeing me response carefully.  I am tempted to roll my eyes and say, “Have I hung myself yet?” but I refrain.  Johanna Reyes deserves politeness.

“Fine,” I say.  “How are you?”

“I’m doing well,” Johanna replies, nodding her head with pleasure.  “The land was barren before, but now it looks as green as it ever was.  But really, how have you been?”

I sigh.  This is how it always is when meeting old friends or former faction leaders and acquaintances.  They hear about Tris’s death, and assume that I am dealing with it horribly—which I am.  But they expect me to have jumped from the Ferris wheel, taken pills and injected myself with horrible substances. 

Maybe I would have, had it not been for Christina.  I’ve said thank you more times than I can count.

“I told you, I’m fine.  It’s hard.  It always will be.”  I stare hard at the snow on the ground.  I will never tell her, or anyone, but I sometimes want it to end.  Want this world to end, want the sorrow to end, want this life to end, want the world to crash and stop revolving around the sun, want the earth to forget about us all and the sun to dry up the waters and the clouds to disappear, I’ve wanted it before.

But I resist.  If it happened, then what was the point of it all?  What was the point of her death?  It felt like the world had collapsed into a stifling heap of ash and tears when she left me, but now it feels like the world stayed and survived because of her sacrifice.

Johanna nods.  “Have you found work in or outside the city?”

I shake my head.

“Didn’t Zeke and your friends offer to provide you with one at the police station?  Guarding the city and fighting crime?”

“Yes, but I’m not willing to take it.”  

“Oh,” Johanna says, hiding her shock with smiles.  “Can I ask why?”

I am almost struck with the question, jumping at the existence of a curious, pushing Amity.  But Johanna is not a typical Amity—the bulge of the gun in her pocket in the snow two years ago proved that she understood the requirement to fight for peace.

I swallow, and decide to trust the woman who is a leader, willing to battle for the peace she once stood for.  I believe she still stands for peace.

“I’m done with guns.  They kill people.  I think I’m done with that sentiment.”

She nods, understanding.  It stings when I think of her, thinking of the time I vowed my disconnection with guns, and it was Tris that kept me moving. 

“How would you like it if I offered you a job?”

I reel back in surprise.  Me, a future leader? 

I’ve always avoided the occupation of a symbol, the rise of a new dawn, the leader who gains followers and raises their voices in excitement.  If my father influenced that thought on me, I don’t care.  I still would not make a very good one.

“I don’t think I—”

“Nonsense,” Johanna interrupts.  Her eyebrows are straight in a nonchalant way that still makes a crease between them.  “You’ll just be my assistant.  Working in the office, sorting my papers, finding your way around political views and approaches.”

She sees me hesitate, trying to turn the conversation into something else.  “Tobias, you will enjoy it.  It is for peace, not to take over the city in unity and revolutionize society.  No, I want to restore a peaceful place, rich in prosperity and joy.”

An assistant to a great politician creating peace in a broken city.  The Fourth City. 

I wish I could call out to her in my mind, speak to her in ways unspoken, to see if she would approve.  To see that her name still is a dagger in my side, a reminder that though I am mending, I am not fully complete.

She died for peace.  For a new world on the brink of dawning, saving innocent people, destroying the chance for peril.

“Do you think…”

Johanna seems to read my mind.  “Yes,” she says softly, deftly wiping a tear from her scarred eye, as if she does not want anyone to see her mourning after two years.  “I think Tris would have wanted you to do this.”

I flinch and nod, feeling her name dig into my ribs like a bird pecking out what flesh I have left.

Peace.  It is, perhaps, the most inviting word I have ever heard and felt and wanted.

“When do I start?”


End file.
